Sharjah : President of the International Publishers Association (IPA) Bodour Al Qasimi met with the youngest Emirati publisher and owner of Rainbow Chimney AlDhabi AlMheiri, and spoke to her about the future of local publishing, during a meeting with members of the Emirates Publishers Association (EPA) as part of a series of meetings with pandemic-hit publishing markets.
Al Qasimi praised the EPA’s journey over the past few years in growing its member network from five to 200, saying this was an indicator of the Emirati publishing industry’s willingness to seize new opportunities, be methodical, collaborate, and learn and grow, according to Emirates News Agency (WAM).
She reinforced the IPA’s commitment to boosting the sector’s resilience and facilitating the publishers’ access to new markets and opportunities. She highlighted the fact that the profound disruptions in the past year prompted a new appraisal of the sector’s pre-COVID business model.
The IPA’s efforts are directed towards helping members build a new future for the sector. Among the latest initiatives and projects designed in response to publishers’ new and emerging needs worldwide are the International Sustainable Publishing and Industry Resilience (Inspire) Charter, and the soon-to-be-launched IPA Academy.
Through a series of training courses in several languages, the IPA Academy will be a global resource designed to close the skills gap in secondary markets by enhancing the publishers’ digital and technical capacities.
To promote the long-term development of the sector, Al Qasimi also highlighted the importance of dialogue, knowledge sharing and cooperation between all active stakeholders in the publishing ecosystem, including publishers, printing houses, libraries, authors, distributors and designers.
“Such a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary approach will boost industry-wide solidarity and strengthen its capacity to face unprecedented challenges,” she said.
She called on the EPA to participate in the IPA’s 33rd International Publishers Congress in November 2022 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The IPA president’s meeting with the EPA members follows a series of meetings this year with publishers’ associations in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Georgia.
